There have been many things removed from Overwatch, some which were heavily publicized like the
removal of Tracers notorious “butt pose” but others you might not know about.
Let's take a look at some of the things Blizzard decided to remove from Overwatch.
On Route 66 behind the Deadlock gangs bar there is an outhouse for the patrons to relieve
themselves in after a few drinks.
However once upon a time that wasn’t the only kind of relief the bar's patrons were
getting as the stall also contained some glossy magazines featuring center page spreads of
some of Overwatch’s female characters.
The images used were nothing special, but the implication of their location on the toilet
floor was pretty clear, I don't think they were just reading them for the articles.
It wasn’t long before Blizzard patched them out of the game and they managed to avoid
any potential backlash, but that wasn’t the case with our next removed item.
Yes, the notorious Tracer butt pose which was removed in rather dramatic fashion shortly
before the game released.
The victory pose began to generate some hate after a player drew attention to it on the
forums, it quickly spiraled out of control as media outlets jumped on the outrage train
and pressure mounted until Blizzard finally removed the pose.
While some players believe the whole thing was ridiculous and it should never have been
removed others were happy to see the pose being replaced, but its replacement was a
bit of double edged sword.
The new pose is actually based on a classic pin up girl image, its certainly more playful
than its predecessor but it's got to be a subtle nod to the players who couldn’t see
what all the fuss was about.
A number of abilities have also been completely removed from the game.
Some of these happened early in development, for example Bastion once had a deployable
mine as an ultimate and Lucio could slow down time, but just as interesting are the abilities
that got into the player's hands for months before they got changed.
Bastion for example has been one of the most altered heroes in the game.
Once upon a time he had a protective barrier in front of him when in sentry mode, but he
couldn’t turn around leaving him exposed from behind.
This is actually still shown in the official Bastion Ability Overview on Overwatch’s
Youtube channel.
While Genji’s swift strike wasn’t completely removed one of its effects was.
Initially it used to apply a bleed effect to deal damage over time, this was later removed
but just like Bastions shield it's still in the overview.
One ability im sure many of you know that was removed is Symmetra’s barriers which
she previously applied to allied heroes, this was removed in her major rework after the
release of the game.
Some voice lines have been removed from the game such as these ones:
but even more surprisingly is that entire characters voices have been removed!
Every line of dialog for Mercy was changed during the beta when the fantastic voice actress
Lucie Pohl came onboard.
In regards to the change Blizzard stated that when casting for Overwatch they always try
to find actors who are fluent in a character's native language and in the case of Mercy they
were able to find an actress that could not only speak fluent German but also captured
the essence of Mercy.
While many new features have been added to the game since its release some have been
removed.
For example you used to be able to rate how much you enjoyed a match.
Blizzard had high hopes for this feature but in actuality they only learnt 3 things.
-New players use the rating system more.
-Players enjoy winning.
-Players don't enjoy losing.
Not exactly a breakthrough in understanding the gamers psyche so the feature was scrapped.
Another similar feature to get cut from the game is the option to “Avoid this player”.
It seemed like a good idea on paper, you could avoid someone who was rude or a sore loser,
however what really happened was players would avoid anyone who was better than them and
as a result these good players would have exceedingly long queue times.
This was causing major problems with matchmaking, one of the best Widowmakers complained to
Blizzard about it and they found that hundreds of other players had avoided them although
they were a nice guy.
The problem was that as he was left in the queue for so long the system would open up
the pool of players to match him with even wider and he would end up playing with players
at even lower skill levels making the situation worse.
So it got removed.
The second part of the feature “prefer this player” still remains in the game, but what
So which of these removed items do you want to see added back in?
Do you want the special magazines to make a reappearance, or perhaps you think Bastion
could really do with that shield again.
Let me know in the comments below!
As always this is James for Curse saying thanks for watching, and enjoy the game!